Manuscripts From The Newsroom

In India too, many journalists like Dhiren Bhagat, M.J. Akbar and Mrinal Pande have written memorable books. But the trend has really caught on now. So much so, a journalist without a book to his or her name almost feels insecure. 바카라�Across all other democracies journalists have written books for over 40 years now. This, for Indian journalists, changed only in the last 15 years, and has picked up great pace in the last few years,바카라� says Ramachandra Guha, historian, writer and managing trustee of the New India Foundation that offers ann­ual fellowships to inspire book writing. 바카라�I wish we could have had journalists like Sham Lal and K.N. Prabhu write books now,바카라� Guha laments.

It is a welcome trend for everyone in the industry and all agree that the full potential of it is yet to be realised. 바카라�Journalists have always written books, although the idea became more pronounced with the explosion of offline and online media, and the sheer number of working journalists with domain exp­ertise,바카라� says Kanishka Gupta, a literary agent who has a number of journalists in his authors list. Others believe the boom in the publishing industry has also been a driving force. 바카라�There are almost 30 to 40 publishers now, producing 200 to 300 books annually. All of them are hungry for writers, and journalists around them become the first picks,바카라� says senior journalist Sheela Reddy, who recently came out with a hit book on the unhappy marriage of Mr and Mrs Jinnah.

And why not? Harish Damodaran, with The Indian Express newspaper, one of the few who bagged the New India Foundation Fellowship, and authored the widely acclaimed India바카라�s New Capitalists, points out that another advantage journalists have is their access. 바카라�As journalists we can get information and access to people,바카라� he says. 바카라�And these are perhaps two of the most important aspects in non-­fiction writing,바카라� says Kapish Mehra, managing director, Rupa Publications.

Often enough, the literary ideas of journalists spring from their daily work. Like in the case of Damodaran who had begun working on a list of businessmen and where they came from for an edit piece he was writing. 바카라�I got so much insight into the world with the help of other journalists I called to compile the list that it soon became a 15,000-word paper,바카라� says Damodaran. A colleague recommended applying for the fellowship, and six months of travel later, he had almost 60 per cent of the book. Senior journalist Manoj Mitta, who has two books to his credit바카라�When a Tree Shook Delhi and The Fiction of Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra바카라�too found inspiration in his day-to-day reporting. 바카라�When ­reporting the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage, the death toll was irrefutable and yet case ­after case saw acquittal. As journalists we can only state facts, but I felt a need to put together missing strands for a lar­ger, ­nuanced picture,바카라� says Mitta. Rana Ayyub바카라�s first book was an investigation that her ­organisation refused to publish. 바카라�I needed the evidence of my sting operation to be made public and there was so much I couldn바카라�t report,바카라� says Ayyub. She had to self-publish Gujarat Files.

For other journalists too, writing books has come organically. Political journalist Uday Mahurkar, for instance, wrote Marching with a Billion: Analysing Narendra Modi바카라�s Government at Midterm, which became an instant hit. Economic journalist Hindol Sengupta has chronicled the present regime in a series of books like Being Hindu: Old Faith, New World and Recasting India. Journalist and commentator Rahul Pandita바카라�s Our Moon Has Blood Clots on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley too found many takers. 바카라�Writing short ­reports and articles that newspapers and magazines require is not satisfying,바카라� says journalist Akshaya Mukul, who wrote the award-winning Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India last year. 바카라�You are doing the same thing again and again, and a book stimulates you to do more,바카라� he says. Reddy too began to write her book to challenge herself. 바카라�I became too comfortable writing my regular stories and felt like I had learnt all I had to at the job,바카라� she says. For both, their books stemmed from a place of int­rigue about the subject, which coupled with their journalistic ability to research and report resulted in the final product. 바카라�My father, a follower of Kabir, would talk about the Gita Press. Somewhere it stayed with me. Gita Press is the largest publisher of Hindu religious texts and yet it had not received much attention. That ­attr­acted me. And later research changed my ­perception of it. What I had imagined to be a story of philanthropy became a political project, about a tool of the Hindu Right,바카라� says Mukul. It was a story ­waiting to be written. Similarly, Reddy found gold in the letters written by Ruttie to Jinnah in the Nehru arch­ives. 바카라�I was only the second person to have checked them out!바카라� she exclaims.

Unlike daily or weekly articles, books require time. It took both Mukul and Reddy almost five years to join all the dots. Mitta tracked the happenings in the 1984 carnage for over 20 years before he came close to gathering all the material on it. Writing books also involved long travels. Reddy recalls finding some of the most important material in the Karachi University archives that had a book collection of Ruttie and Jinnah.

Reddy had got an advance for her ­research, but most journalists have to spend their own money. 바카라�The economics of writing and publishing have never been good. Anyone who gets into it wanting to make money is sure to be blindsided,바카라� says Damodaran, who can바카라�t quit his job and work solely on his next book because of an EMI. For now he sticks to research in the mornings and evenings between work. Ayyub mentions having to take loans to self-publish her book.

바카라�Unless it바카라�s a star biography, or autobiography, or an extremely current book, we are looking at 5,000 to 10,000 copies on the higher side,바카라� says Gupta about the market for these books.

Publishers also take a fair share of risk while working with journalists. 바카라�I have burnt my fingers signing journalists who show great interest at the contract signing stage but don바카라�t have the discipline to complete a full-length work,바카라� says Gupta. Then, there바카라�s the tricky business of books on controversial subjects, with a fair few examples that have run into trouble in defamations suits or outright bans.

Yet, all the risks haven바카라�t stopped the steady increase in the number of journalists writing books. In fact, with the growing trend of quick, newsy books, the numbers being written have almost doubled. There may be a few who are just riding the wave with quickies, but the more serious journalists get into deep research for their books. Mitta is working on his third, a look into Dalit massacres from 바카라�67 onwards바카라�making it a trilogy on mass violence after 1984 and Godhra. Damodaran is researching for his second바카라�a biography of industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia, Mukul on the Hindi writer Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 바카라�Agyeya바카라�. Reddy too is working on a commission. Guha believes that some of the greatest writings have come from journalists and therefore should only be kindled. If the present trend continues, the journalists will not disappoint him.